


Worth the Shots

by whitesilverandmercury



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AU, M/M, and proposals have their perks, happy valentine's day, in which shiro's playful side shows through, stolen meme, where tf did this come from
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 10:58:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13680321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitesilverandmercury/pseuds/whitesilverandmercury
Summary: “Marry me,” Shiro says, with such control and charisma. Maybe he should go into community theater instead ofThe First 48. Maybe they can be friends after this. Worth a shot, Shiro had said earlier. Worth the shot. The shot. Cupid’s arrow flying swift and without mercy into the target in Keith’s chest and Keith slides down off the stool and cranes down where Shiro crouches and he kisses him. And the scribble on the bar napkin reads:360-324-0927 – Real dates are better any day but V-Day// sheith ficlet





	Worth the Shots

**Author's Note:**

> in which i couldn’t resist that little valentine’s day fake proposal meme (full credit to post) going around // happy fuckin valentine’s day fluff <3 <3

 

WORTH THE SHOTS

* * *

The first bar is just an Irish pub up, a cramped oak-paneled neon-light and stolen street sign lined hole in the wall sort of thing with Valentine’s Day commercials flashing and marqueeing across television screens usually set to sports games. There might also be preemptive cut-out leprechauns tacked up, because it makes work so much easier to delight in trolling patrons.

And the guy is a vision of broad shoulders and model-cut hips in slim-fit jeans and a black hoodie under denim jacket. Keys hooked at the belt loop and dark hair following cowlick, at crown of the head, a shock of white over the widow’s peak and a pure, open sort of laugh that commands attention only for its honesty and its timbre and not for jarring intrusiveness (like the rowdy party in the corner opposite).

It’s because of that charismatic laugh that Keith accidentally meet’s the guy’s soft grey eyes. Twice. Keith’s glance darts away, of course, because meeting a stranger’s eyes is always much more awkward than they make it seem in the movies; but he does not look away fast enough that the other guy’s complete lack of awkwardness goes unnoticed. Eyes hovering until Keith’s move away. Eyes almond shaped and bright in the dim bar lights. As if to say _Sorry this is more awkward than they make it in the movies_. Almost-dimples when the laugh lingers on his smooth face as a ghosting smile —

“Congratulations!”

“Holy shit, no way — ”

“Oh my God, oh my _God!_ ”

Across the pub, there is an eruption of cheers and shouts, a rolling mirth that dissolves into clapping and whistling all throughout the place. Startled, Lance looks over his shoulder from where he and Keith and Hunk hog one of the dart boards, tipsy enough to be feisty but not tipsy enough to be mean. “What … ?” he starts, but Hunk explains before he can ask.

“I think someone just got engaged,” he says as he gently nudges Lance out of the way and throws a dart straight to the center of the board, like a shot of Cupid’s arrow.

Yes, indeed, like a mosh pit the knot of people lifts the happy couple to their feet again — crying woman, beaming man — hugs and kisses and back-slaps and light glinting off a sizable ring and the bartenders crying, “Drinks for the lovely couple! Drinks for the lovely couple! On us! What’ll you have — ?”

“You stole my thunder!” the guy in the denim and hoodie calls with hands cupped around his mouth to project his voice over the not one-hundred-percent sober excitement.

“Shiro,” one of his friends sputters, a girl, a girl with a lyrical accent and a nest of soft violet hair, sloppy bun that leaves limp natural curls dusting her brow and cheekbones as she shakes at his shoulder. “Shiro, Matt was only joking!”

One of the guy’s other friends howls with laughter, stooped with hands on knees. He pushes at the guy in denim and hoodie, clearly resident terrible influence —

And there is someone beside Keith suddenly, where he sits on one of the high bar chairs at a high bar table near the dart boards, running his fingers along the neck of his beer to collect condensation like dew drops. His ears ring for all the noise. He looks over, with that bristled sort of instinct when personal space is breached in public.

And it’s the guy with the dimpled grins and the denim jacket and he’s on his knee by the table and with alarming (but charming) gravity, he says, “What about you, will you marry me?”

Suddenly all eyes are on them now — it’s an epidemic, it’s Valentine’s Day, love is in the air and everyone’s drunk on the idea of romance and red and pink cards and — a low hum of new cheering and other verbal applause crests into a wave against the buzz of the television screens over the counter —

“What the fuck?” Keith blurts, rearing back somewhere between dismay and annoyance. “ _No_ ,” he says firmly. “And you don’t even have a ring.”

What he means is _Who the fuck are you?_ What he means is _You’re really cute but I think you’re really drunk_. What he also means is _I am so confused right now_.

The wave of almost-cheers crashes into an echo of gasps and choked-back sounds of surprise, guffaws, secondhand embarrassment and preemptive consolation and the intermittent heteronormative doubt that still haunts crowds now and again in this new, progressive age. The newly-engaged woman who wears a shining new ring coughs through her happy tears, feeling guilty but also feeling proud she will remain the star of the night in the pub.

“What the hell, man?” Lance says in the new spiraling silence, voice bouncing from first word to last word protective and ready to jump. “Are you serious?”

“A drink on us!” one of the bartenders cries. “Hey, buddy, it’s okay, he’s just not ready, shots on us for you both!”

The other bartender hurries two double vodkas their way. The guy grabs one; he hands the other to Keith with a little tip of his own shotglass for a _clink_ all his own doing as Keith just sits there holding his free drink, dumbfounded and so, so close to temper snap in his confusion —

The guy’s friends are in peals of laughter that harken to cahoots. That girl with the smoky violet hair, a young man with sandy blond hair, a few others just shadows in the dim light. And the guy in denim and hoodie gives Keith a conspiratorial but respectful nod of the head, the flicker of a dark, playful glance, before he lifts the shot to his soft mouth and tosses it back like a pro.  

***

“Hey — I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to put you on the spot in there.”

“Except you did, because you _did_.”

“I’m sorry, again.”

“You did it for the free drink, right?”

The guy droops with a guilty little grin that softens his cut jaw and face carved for seriousness. His chuckle is a rustling sound, out on the street along the pub’s front in the damp February chill, not raining but still hungry for naked fingers and whiskey-warm cheeks. And Keith frowns up at the guy with arms crossed and hip cocked, weight on one pedestal foot, as the bar district swirls around them. Cars and people and shouts and distant music and the dance of streetlights through the occasional tree adorning the sidewalks, night’s specials scrawled on chalkboard A-frames. He frowns more because he is quite aware of the way he’s blushing, looking up at the guy. Because he really is fucking cute and Keith is a sucker.

“It was worth a shot,” the guy says, apologetically. Resigned to the suspicion he has just ruined a stranger’s night and has reason to regret a joke he thought would land well with someone he thought had been of the same antsy boredom as him —

“Worth the shot,” Keith agrees.

“Shiro,” the guy says, sticking out a hand.

Hesitantly, Keith takes it to shake. “Keith,” he returns.

There is a moment of eye contact, too long to avoid the Point of No Return. They don’t tell you that in the movies, either.

There are dating sites and friends of friends and friends who become more than friends and there’s Tinder and then there’s good, old-fashioned, pre-digital era meet someone out one night and take a chance on chance.

Worth a shot.

“You wanna try it again?” Keith asks quietly.

Shiro blinks a few times, as if he doubts he has heard what he has, as if blinking would have any effect on that anyway. Flustered looks good on a guy like him. To fluster a guy as tall and broad (and fucking hot) as him summons a triumphant smirk to pluck at Keith’s mouth.

“You’re going to get murdered,” Lance interjects from a yard or two away, because he’s been eavesdropping, unlike Shiro’s friends, who are waiting for him at the crosswalk.

Shiro laughs, an altogether arresting and alluring sound. “He’s not going to get murdered.”

“That’s exactly what a murderer would say,” Lance reminds.

“I’ll text you guys in a little bit,” Keith says, and shoves his hands in his aviator pockets as he half-jogs across the street between cars, knowing full well this Shiro guy is going to follow him.

It’s a game more than a quest to get hammered.

The second bar is down the hill, a local homegrown band sort of joint that too often features synth and awkward basement techno more than it features good old indie rock. Twenty minutes in and the fake proposal lands them ciders on the house.

The third bar is one of the city’s hidden secrets, a half-underground place that serves absinthe and French Revolution whiskey. Keith swivels to and fro on the bar stool and in the warm glow of dressing-room style lighting, he says, “You know, I hate Valentine’s Day.”

Shiro chuckles. He’s got his jackets off, draped over his lap. This close, one can see how his throat is just thick enough. Catch the scent of cologne and unfamiliar skin (sweet, warm). Dog tags bouncing where baseball tee flirts with firm clavicle.

“Aww,” he murmurs. “That’s sad. Not a romantic?”

“No.” Keith smirks, shyly, lifting his drink for a sip. Feeling it in his fingertips and toes, yes. “Just not down for capitalism.”

“Ohhh,” Shiro says with a little incline of the chin and a dance in his lovely grey eyes. His voice is like burnt velvet, it is slightly husky the same it is smooth and strong. “I see. You’re like that, huh?”

“I was raised by a conspiracy theorist,” Keith explains flatly, watching Shiro from the corner of his eye to see if he believes him or not.

Shiro just shrugs, gentle little perk of a smile. “And I have a GI Bill I still need to use, so no wonder we both ended up hating imperialist capitalism.”

“What for?”

“Because the truth is out there — ” Shiro teases, the kind of stealthy humor that comes unexpected from someone so cool and respectable. Humor like fake proposing for free drinks and being believable because he is so clearly not an asshole. Is there anything _not_ perfect about this man?

“No,” Keith says. “I mean, the Bill. Going to school. What for?”

“Oh.” Shiro’s face dimples in a sheepish smile. He rises to stand in the cramped little bar, looming in the best of ways, and then he lowers down to a crouch and holds a hand up and raises his voice so they win the game: “ _Keith, will you marry me?_ ”

“Fuck yes!” Keith blurts, wide-eyed and laughing because the more they do this, the more it really strikes him how ridiculously fucked up it is. Also, after this next free drink, he needs some water.

Shiro grins up at him as the modest number of other patrons begin to coo and cheer. They make a good team, the two of them.

The fourth bar is just a few blocks away, old brick building right next to a dance club. It leaves the sidewalks clotted with people, cigarettes in the alley around the corner laced by unused fire escapes and loaded dumpsters.

In the soft dark of the bar, Shiro clears his throat after a small swig of beer, and he says without looking at Keith, “Forensics.”

“Hmm?” Keith asks, brow knotting. He looks up from check pen poised over his napkin instead of the receipt paper, wrestling with the idea of writing down his phone number and slipping it Shiro’s way. His face is flushed from the cold outside, from the drinking, from the growing comfort in Shiro’s presence. Like they’ve known each other longer than tonight. Aviator jacket draped on the hook under the bar counter, sleeves of his sweater shoved up to the elbows.

“School.” Shiro smiles distantly at the bottles that line the wall opposite them in twinkling rows. “I’d love to work in crime scene forensics.”

“Oh shit,” Keith breathes. “Meanwhile, I’m just tutoring rich people’s kids on piano.”

Shiro almost chokes on another swallow of his drink. “You play piano?”

“What, did you think I spent my time smoking cigarettes in coffeeshops planning Marxist takedowns of the government?”

“You make enough money doing that?”

“You’d be surprised how much some people pay for it. Also, I’m still in school myself.”

“Marry me,” Shiro mutters around the mouth of his beer bottle, and it is not their game. It is a carefree, playful comment, of seemingly no consequence.

“You don’t even have a ring,” Keith says for the second time that night, grinning into his hand where he hopes Shiro cannot see it.

Pink and red construction paper chains and cut-out hearts dance along the edge of the bar counter, drape along the walls between cheap Dollar Store shiny red hearts and creepy smiling cupids. There is a touchdown in whatever game is on the wide-screen TV over the bar. Shiro slides off the stool and drops to his knee and Keith just smiles idly down at him, waiting for his cue.

“Keith,” Shiro begins.

For the third time tonight Keith blushes hot to hear his name in the shape of Shiro’s voice.

“It’s Valentine’s Day,” Shiro says as half the bar’s attention swivels their way.

That gentle, genuine smile and those deep grey eyes that charm him ho-hum, Shiro whatever-his-name-is who wants to be a crime scene analyst or some shit and likes to con bars into free drinks and smiles at Keith like he’s actually interested in what he has to say.

“Marry me,” Shiro says, with such control and charisma. Maybe he should go into community theater instead of _The First 48_.

Maybe they can be friends after this. _Worth a shot_ , Shiro had said earlier. _Worth the shot_. The shot. Cupid’s arrow flying swift and without mercy into the target in Keith’s chest and Keith slides down off the stool and cranes down where Shiro crouches and he kisses him.

Some blonde girls at the door, coming in in the midst of the production, gasp and giggle and cry out in tipsy excitement, as girls, for some reason, always do. Like the way some guys whistle, pound a fist, turn into animals with their un-word sounds of manly support.

Wait — _fuck_.

Keith recoils from his own accident but Shiro’s hand closes on the back of his head, right in the perfect spot where skull meets neck. He holds them together as he stands, slowly, guides Keith to straighten up with him, and he kisses him back. _Kissing_ him back. Head ducked. Slightly stooped. Keith arching back into the way Shiro’s arms close around his body, in the dip at the small of his back made just for arms closing around a body, and it wrinkles his sweater at his tailbone, lifts it up a little under the press of Shiro’s embrace as he cranes into the kissing. His nose bumps Keith’s as they kiss as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and God damn is he sweet, God damn is it easy to melt into his body heat, holy shit does he smell good and Keith tastes the metal of nervousness on his teeth or maybe it’s just his heart in his throat and half the bar is supportive except a small group of drunken men there for the sports game who just _look_ like walking discrimination and one of them gripes, “Get that shit out of the bar — ”

Keith breaks away with a stuttering breath to send him a nasty look around Shiro’s shoulder, firing back, “Fuck you, we’re in love, asshole!”

It dissolves into a real, honest laugh. It’s easier to really, honestly laugh after a cider and a shot of vodka and a Corona and French Revolution whiskey and he’s still whiskey laughing as Shiro’s arms tighten there at the small of his back because he is just bigger enough to hoist him up that way, up almost off his toes, arms secured at the dip of Keith’s spine as he half-carries him through the people and out into the chilly street.

They do not get a free drink at this bar.  

“Fuck, my coat is inside,” Keith mumbles.

“I’ll get it,” Shiro offers.

Keith stands shivering, curling in on himself and clenching his teeth against chattering in the deepening February dark as he waits for Shiro to reappear outside the bar. “Congratulations!” strangers are saying to him. And Keith can’t play along; he’s too flustered; he just blushes hot and smiles nervously and nods and shrugs and “Congratulations! Love is love! No hate! You two are adorable! When’s the wedding? Congratulations!”

Shiro tosses Keith’s jacket at him. Keith writhes into it. They hurry across the street to the little park of Pioneer Square, breathless and flustered and laughing together now, if not a little apprehensively after what just went down in the bar. Keith’s phone buzzes in his pocket; he pulls it out to a text from Lance, begging for an update.

“Your friends?” Shiro asks, with that lovely evenness of tone and smooth edges of words.

“Yeah.”

“Drive you home?”

Keith glances up at Shiro without lifting his head. _Drive you home_. Iconic pre-hookup question. He isn’t sure he wants to hook up. He opens his mouth but the words have no chance because Shiro shakes his head, waves a hand.

“I mean for real,” he insists. “I’ll drive you home. Nothing funny.”

It’s not very often a guy meets someone so respectful and respectable at a bar.

“Thanks for sticking it to Valentine’s Day with me,” he says.

“You’re welcome,” Keith murmurs.

In the low lights of the apartment complex, where he directs Shiro, where he climbs out of Shiro’s warm car, where he stands at the open passenger door with icicle fingers and icicle toes tucked into socks and shoes, Keith waits. He waits for another kiss, a reach for a hug, anything. It doesn’t come. Shiro drives off and as he watches him go, feeling a little betrayed by the harsh severance of not-stranger strangers, jaw set and brow knotted, Keith hunches into the collar of his aviator jacket and shoves his hands in the pockets and touches thin, scratchy bar napkin.

He blinks, confused.

Slowly, throat suddenly tight with anticipation, Keith pulls out the napkin.

Scribbled with care on the uncooperative material is:

_360-324-0927 – Real dates are better any day but V-Day_

Keith stands rooted in place, face rosied red by the cold and by the sudden innocent flustered heat rushing through his veins. Little clouds of breath escape his lips; a smile unfurls across his face sheepish and embarrassing and shy and thank God no one is around to see it. Thank God Lance and Hunk are already in the apartment, already Advilled and watered and probably passed out waiting for him to get home. Keith needs some Advil, too, he needs some water, and he needs to be buried in bed and hopefully not feel too shitty in the morning. He needs to warm his fingers up so it won’t hurt to punch Shiro’s number into the contacts of his phone like it hurts as he punches it into the recipient bar of a new text, as he thumbs out the message:

_To: 360-324-0927_

_Are they better Fridays at 7?_

 

 

**end.**


End file.
